Stolen Light
by XoXoKojiroXoXo
Summary: After a night of senseless violence, Jessie finds herself spiraling to pick up the pieces of her fractured life.  Rated for language, violence, rape, and drug use.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is my first pokemon fic ever, and I'll admit that it's probably not very accurate with the series as there are many episodes I haven't seen. Still, I thought I'd give it a go and see how this works out. Er, I'll apologize now for Meowth's voice; I can't type in his voice. And I know the characters may seem OOC now, but . . . whatever, you don't want to read these notes anyway, do you?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon and, unfortunately for me, do not own Team Rocket, though I like to believe otherwise. Engrave this in your head because you'll never hear me admit it again. It hurts too much.**

Night. A time of fantasies, where moonlit shadows held the philosophies of another age, answers to questions never asked. Memories flooded the ethereal haze even as one fought desperately to forget.

Meowth, a pokemon cursed with nocturnal instincts despite training to become as human as possible, found his paws carrying him in circles around the apartment. Of course, 'apartment' was a bit of a loose term for the stack of bricks Meowth and his teammates shared. The team shared three rooms, two of which were a bathroom and a kitchen, the remaining room cradling a king sized mattress (courtesy of the town dump) with holes exposing the springs and a rickety lamp with no shade. This lamp remained off, in spite of the darkness, as they were down to their last light bulb. Besides, Meowth could see just fine in the darkness, and his human companions weren't in the vicinity to complain.

"At least it's clean," Meowth imagined James saying in his usual optimistic fashion. Or maybe something along the lines of, "The kitchen actually has food in it this time!" But Meowth dropped these thoughts just as fast as they flashed through his mind. He tried not to think about James too much these days. Things change. And so, Meowth realized, did people, as cliché as it sounded. This realization had hit the cat pokemon harder than he'd thought possible.

Meowth sloped into the kitchen, conflicted with the debate of his stomach. Should he risk the wrath of his partners by eating the last slice of bread? The crisis took second priority as his furred ears pricked to the creaking of the front door opening.

'Good, dey're home,' Meowth sighed in relief. After all, it was well past two in the morning. The two had been out for nearly eight hours now!

"Its about time yous twos got back! We still gotta run ovah our plan for tomorrow," Meowth nagged, tensing up as he waited for a response. Depending on how well the date had gone, he could expect either a snide remark or a concussion from a mallet, courtesy of Jessie.

As the silence stretched, Meowth's need to protect himself dropped slightly, replaced instead by worry. The house seemed too quiet for both Jessie and her partner to have returned. "Didja hear me?" He rose his voice, edging towards the doorway into the main room.

The front door hung ajar where it had been entered moments prior, though neither of his teammates could be seen. As he closed the door, however, he noted Jessie's rose heels kicked off on the carpet, supplying enough evidence to realize which one had returned.

So where was Jessie? 

"Jessie? Where are you?" Meowth called out, voice constricting in his throat. He made out a squeaking noise, the sound a Pikachu made when its head was trapped in a Ziploc bag. A sound crossed between a sob and a scream. The hairs on Meowth's back bristled as the room seemed to chill ten degrees.

Meowth's paws transported him across the room, into the hall leading to the bathroom. The noise intensified, escaping through the same crack that allowed light to flood the tiled floor preceding the bathroom.

"Jessie, are you alright?" Meowth asked, leaning against the wall. The noise faded slightly, though he could faintly make out human breaths from inside. Still worried, he leaned a paw against the door. "Jess, I'm comin' in, alright?" Painfully, he inched the door open, initially relieved to find his female companion fully dressed only to plummet farther into distress than he had been earlier.

The girl huddled on the shower floor, water running out of the faucet without use, could not possibly be Jessie. Not this broken girl with the shattered expression. The girl huddled into herself, lost in a nightmare she couldn't awake from, used in a way Meowth had never before witnessed, in a way Jessie could never be portrayed. This girl was everything Jessie wasn't. There had to be some mistake.

Meowth's eyes widened, transfixed to the almost familiar form as her face turned to him. Her makeup streamed down her face, staining her pale flesh and puddling on the wet linoleum. Even through the water, Meowth knew she was crying, though she didn't seem aware of the fact. "Meowth," Her voice quivered through bloody lips, a familiar sound to Meowth, though not possibly Jessie's voice, for this girl lacked emotion, speaking in a dazed monotone. Still, he inched closer, needing to hear what this stranger-Jessie would say next.

"Meowth, he raped me."


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Well, my cruelty is not yet honed in enough to be Team Rocket worthy, as I couldn't bear to leave my loyal fan base on such a cliffy. Not that it was that spectacular, mind you, but it seems people get a bit curious when you leave them with the parting words "he raped me". Ah, a paradigm shift is needed, peoples! How can this leave anyone in shock and curiosity is beyond me (I mean, I already told you who raped her . . . oh wait, no I didn't . . . erm, well then . . .).**

**Disclaimer: Already told ya, never gonna admit who really owns Pokemon. In fact, I have a half naked James shackled in my basement who shall receive his nightly visitation as soon as I finish this chapter.**

What sick God, Meowth pondered in the sickly silence, had found it in the right to present them these lives? True, they were crooks, incompetent as they may be. And they did promote the ideas of self gratification. But if they didn't help themselves, who would? Creatures born for the sole purpose of wishing on fallen stars reaped no benefits from this society. They had been predestined for a Hell before their sins had even been committed. Here he was, a nocturnal creature in a nocturnal universe that still belonged nowhere; not human enough for equality, not pokemon enough for love. A fractured being shadowed behind sarcasm and a hollow grin.

And then there was Jessie, the girl who'd come from nothing to arrive at nothing. To be treated as nothing by those who supposedly 'loved her', to lose everyone genuine in her existence. Losing so much that even simple phrases such as "I love you" and "You're beautiful" held no truth in her eyes. Truth was lie. The boy she'd held such false hopes for had left her withered and used, wasting behind with no one to look after her.

'That's not true,' Meowth thought vehemently. 'She's got you.'

'Please, Meowth,' a familiarly sadistic whisper countered. 'Like she really wants a losah like you hangin' around her.'

'I'm here to protect 'er if he . . .'

'You wouldn't protect 'er, though, wouldja? If anyting happened, you'd be out da door. Just like last year, wit' Ja-'

Unable to finish the thought, Meowth covered his ears with his paws, futility believing this would stop the mental images of the prior year from flashing through his head. "Now is not da time to crack up, Meowth. Get a grip, wouldja?" He muttered, lowering his hands gradually.

The sun cast shadows through the musty room, streaming through the broken blinds tentatively, the very Earth rotating gradually to prevent further damage to the cracked china doll occupying the defeated mattress. 'We shoulda gone to da hospital last night,' Meowth realized, too late as always. Wasn't there a free clinic a few blocks away from here? Not that money should matter, not now. She'd have to go sooner or later, and the sooner the better, right? She could be pregnant, or have an STD, or . . . Meowth racked his insomniatic brain, unable to recall any lesson in Team Rocket training on how to deal with something like this.

"Breathe, Meowth, breathe," he commanded, rubbing his charm to thwart the pounding of an oncoming migraine. "Let's just take dis one step atta time."

The growling of the cat startled him into the realization that not much of anything could be done to help Jessie if the two of them didn't eat something soon. Unskilled at the kitchen as he was, Meowth managed to wrestle two pastries into the toaster.

"Hey Jess," Meowth re entered the living/bedroom after nearly fifteen minutes of combat with the electronics. And, despite the tarred crust, the pop tarts had come out relatively edible. He nudged the slumbering red head with his toe lightly. "Jessie, come on, time fo' breakfast. And dey're smores, your favorite."

She rose slowly, eyes still caked with last night's makeup, though she seemed more coherent than she had a few hours ago. She reached out for the paper plate, picking at the crust uncertainly without raising any to her lips.

"Listen, um, Jessie, I dink . . ." Meowth paused for a moment, biting his lower lip precariously. "Maybe we should . . . go to da clinic or sometin' . . ."

"I want James."

The sentence, articulate as it was delivered, slammed into Meowth's gut with enough force to temporarily knock the wind out of the small pokemon. He staggered, "Wh-what?" 

"James!" She began repeating his name, screaming it in an eerie chant that stretched beyond the realms of sanity. Her voice carried the notes of his name through the decayed air to a time of what-ifs and happily-never-afters. She balleted the name until her lips could dance no more, cracking aware with a sob, as she collapsed into Meowth's waiting arms.

"Jessie, he's . . . he's not here, Jess," Meowth said softly, hating himself for admitting it, hating her even more for making him. "He hasn't been with us for ovah a year now." His anger bubbled over, hazing itself into an abstract emotion, undirected but still hurdled. "We're nevah gonna see him again, Jessie, so wouldja just forget about 'im?" 

"Quit acting like he's dead, Meowth," She snapped, tone frozen over. "He's not lost to us, Meowth. If we called him . . ." 

"Oh come ON, Jessie, he made it pretty obvious he nevah wants to hear from us again."

"Well, would you?" 

The bluntness of the statement cut Meowth sharply. "I'm still here, though, Jess."

"Yeah, but you don't want to, do you?" She sneered, tears arctic odium on her face. "You're not pissed that he left. You're just pissed that you didn't have enough sense to leave, too." 

"You don't know shit, Jessie!" Meowth snapped. "He cut us off him like we were nothin', like we were just filth he could wash free from us like . . . no, I don't want to talk about him now, okay? Not now."

"Well, I do." Her chin quavered slightly, intonation losing its stubbornness, eroding to fractured tears.

Meowth fractures at this, wishing he hadn't gone as far into the conversation as he had. "Aftah we eat, we need ta load up da balloon and . . ." 

"Daniel took the balloon," Jessie monotoned, drying her face with the back of her hands.

"Right. Of course he did.," Meowth sighed, realizing this should have been obvious. After what that asshole had taken from Jessie, of course he couldn't have left without a souvenir of his year stint with the team. "Well den, we'll just hafta walk. Its not so far, anyways."

"I don't care how far it is. I'm not going."

"Of course you're going!" 

"Why? So they can tell me that I'm a dirty whore, that I brought it onto myself?" Her voice rose hysterically. "Or they'll find out I'm in Team Rocket, and send me off to some jail for me to rot." 

"That's not gonna happen." Still, he said this softly, as if he took into consideration the reality of the scenario. Then, more forcefully, he added, "Besides, what if you're pregnant or sometin'?"

"Then I'm pregnant. And they won't be able to do anything, anyway."

"You could get an abortio-"

"What if I'm _not_ pregnant, Meowth? Then we'd have wasted all that money on hospital bills for nothing."

"But what if you are?" 

"If I go, will you shut up?" She finally concluded, eyes rolling in a way that was at once annoying, yet comforting.

At least she was acting like Jessie now.


End file.
